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SCOTUS To Decide if Cops Need More 'Elbow Room' To Conduct Certain Warrantless Home Searches
A new case tests the limits of the “community caretaking exception” to the Fourth Amendment.
reason.com
The case is Caniglia v. Strom. It originated in 2015 when Cranston, Rhode Island, police paid a "well call" on 68-year-old Edward Caniglia. His wife had been unable to reach him after they had a fight and she was worried that he might be suicidal. So she called the authorities. The police took Caniglia to the hospital, where he was examined by a nurse and a social worker and discharged that same day. Meanwhile, the police entered his home without a warrant while he was gone and seized his two handguns. The present case centers on Caniglia's claim that this warrantless police action violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
[...]
Caniglia now wants the Supreme Court to overrule that lower court decision. Extending the community caretaking doctrine "into the home—the most protected of all private spaces—would create a loophole in the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement wide enough to drive a truck through," Caniglia and his lawyers told the justices. "So long as an officer reasonably claims to be taking care of the community, he can disregard the Fourth Amendment's protections."
Let's hope Trump's appointees come through, but who tf knows. Government-run courts typically aren't too keen on limiting government power.